Lean on Me
by parttimeficwriter
Summary: Set after 9.7. Ruth insists she's fine but what has Harry got to say about it? Rated due to a couple of swear words. R/H


**Right, so I'd promised myself that I'd spend my spare time writing the next bit of my fluffy fic however a rather forceful Harry marched in to my head carrying this plot bunny with him. Who am I to argue with a forceful Harry?**

**This is set a couple of days after 9.7. Some of the details are taken from Harry's Diary and then I embellished a bit ;-)**

**I don't own Spooks, Harry's Diary or anything else unfortunately.**

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_Lean on me, when you're not strong_

_And I'll be your friend_

_I'll help you carry on_

_For it won't be long_

_'Til I'm gonna need_

_Somebody to lean on_

_-Bill Withers_

"Come with me" he orders, taking hold of her elbow and steering her none too gently across the Grid. It's not exactly humming with activity but it's not deserted either and their movements are tracked by several pairs of inquisitive eyes.

"Harry," she says, sharply and she doesn't need to finish her sentence for him to hear the _what the hell are you doing._

He opens the meeting room door and gives her a gentle shove towards the door.

'In there,' his tone leaves her little to argue with and she slinks inside but not without giving him a dirty look before she does so.

He follows her in and points to a seat on the right hand side of the desk.

"Sit," he tells her and eases himself into the chair directly opposite her as she complies.

"We need to talk," he says without preamble, "about what you said in the hospital."

"We've been through this Harry. There's nothing more to talk about, I'm fine," she answers, coolly, seconds before she's up out of her seat and heading for the door.

"Sit back down, Ruth. Now." The tone of his voice shocks her in to inaction and she turns to him, almost disbelieving that he has spoken to her in this manner. 'You may not have anything else to say, Miss Evershed, but I have plenty. As your boss it is my duty to make sure you are physically and mentally fit for work. At the moment I have grave concerns regarding your wellbeing and if you walk out that door I will have no alternative but to suspend you from active duty and refer you for psychological assessment."

She looks at him, shock and anger plain to see on her face for the split second that their gazes meet. It is gone almost as soon as it appears but it confirms Harry's suspicion that beneath the indifferent exterior she has been sporting for the last few days there is a wealth of anger and confusion caught in a whirlwind of pain.

"Sit down," he says again, slightly gentler, "please, Ruth."

"I'm not sure I have any other choice," she retorts, bitterly.

"No, you don't," he agrees and appraises her silently from across the table. She tries hard not to squirm under his gaze and is mostly successful.

"What do you want from me, Harry" she sighs eventually when she can no longer take the oppressive silence.

"I want you to listen to me. What you're feeling, Ruth, it's-"

"Don't tell me I'm in shock," she snaps at him, forcefully, "I'm not in shock. I wish to God I were but I'm not so don't you dare try and tell me I am."

"Normal, I was going to say," he answers, calmly.

"Oh, _normal_. Right. How stupid of me not to have realised," she scoffs, eyes cold and hard. "And how am I feeling, if you're the expert?"

"Numb mainly. Like you're stuck in quicksand and don't know whether to try and get out or let it slowly pull you beneath the surface. You know you're conscious but you don't really feel awake, do you?" His eyes never leave hers as he describes her feelings with such clarity that she feels he is able to read her tortured soul. " There's so much noise in your head as a thousand and one questions bombard your everyone waking moment but the one that's got you, the question that frightens you most is who am I? If I can kill someone and feel so little about it, who the fuck have I become?"

He lets the words resonate for a moment before locking his gaze with hers. "How am I doing so far?"

"I didn't know you were in to amateur psychology, Harry," she says, scathingly, not wanting to admit just how close to the mark he actually is.

"I'm not," he says, tersely, before taking a deep breath and biting down on his temper, "I know from experience."

"And you're what? Lending me the benefit of your experience?"

"If that's how you want to put it."

"I don't think what I want matters one iota at this moment in time."

"Lash out at me all you want, Ruth. I have news for you; you're not half as hard-hearted as you'd like me to believe. The bitchy routine might work with the others but it doesn't wash with me, so you can drop it any time you fancy."

"I thought I was being normal a minute ago" she retorts, after a minute of tense silence and staring one another out.

'I was 23 when I first killed someone. Two people actually,' he corrects himself automatically, "I won't bore you with the details but believe me when I tell you that I didn't cope with it very well."

'Why are you telling me this?'

His eyes bore in to hers, refusing to let her look away from him. 'I didn't have anyone who cared enough to try and help me through it.'

'You had a wife, Harry, someone to go home to. I'm sure you must have had friends too."

'Yes, I did, a best friend I was too proud to talk to and a wife who thought she'd married a living nightmare and I suppose, in some respects, she was right. I wasn't the man she'd married. I didn't bring home chocolates and flowers for our first anniversary, I brought death and guilt," he shakes his head at the memories, "Small wonder she didn't divorce me there and then. I spent the next two weeks on the sofa and drank myself in to oblivion at every opportunity.'

"It doesn't work," she says, quietly, and he can hear the shame and self-loathing in her voice.

"No' he agrees, saddened to hear that she has been trying to find solace in the bottom of a bottle, 'it doesn't.'

He lets the silence stretch out between them for endless minutes knowing that they are teetering on the edge. He won't push her any more, where it goes from here is down to her. "What does?" she asks, softly, and looks everywhere but at him.

"You need to know that he would have killed you if you hadn't acted first, and he would have, Ruth."

"Harry," she says, pleadingly, "please, don't-"

"Make no bones about it, he was going to kill you both," he says, undeterred, knowing that she needs to understand and accept it before she can begin to heal herself. "Most likely he'd have killed Keith first and would have made you watch, would have told you it was your fault, that his blood was on your hands because of who you are, _what_ you are. And then, when he'd put you through enough mental torture, he would have killed you, in cold blood, and he would have shown no remorse for it at all."

"Oh God," she chokes, eyes screwed tightly shut against the deluge of images his words have unleashed. "I don't-I can't," she gasps, struggling for breath as a wealth of hidden emotion and pain slams in to her consciousness. She stands abruptly, pushing the chair back so hastily that it falls over and crashes to the floor. "I don't know how to cope with this," she shouts, angrily at him, before retreating to the corner furthest away from him and sliding down the wall to sit in a heap on the floor, "I'm not you!"

"No you're not," he says gently, getting up and slowly making his way over to where she is sat. He eases in next to her, careful not to touch her, "you're Ruth Evershed."

"I don't even know who she is anymore."

"She's the strongest, most capable woman I know," he tells her, seriously, earning a derisive snort in response. "It's ok to be afraid, Ruth. There's no shame in it."

She begins to laugh and cry at the same time and turns her face up to meet his understanding gaze. "I'm fucking terrified, Harry," she confesses, her hand reaching up to clutch his bicep fiercely.

"I know," he whispers, encouragingly.

"I don't want to do this on my own," she sobs finally giving in to the tide of emotion inside her. Her head buries itself against his shirt clad arm as she clings to him.

"I'm here, Ruth," he croons against her hair as her tears fall on his shirt, "I'll always be here."

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**Please review. **


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